By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
It's that time of year again probably my favorite time of the year for the blog. It's time to create my annual Best of the Best lists!
This year, I did something a little bit different. Because I streamlined New Book Alerts and Weekly Reader into one category, I separated the lists into genres. There are three pages of lists. Here we have Contemporary Literature, Historical Fiction (on page one), Science Fiction, Fantasy (on page two) Horror, Mystery/Thrillers, and Nonfiction (on page three). Books in a series count as one. Some links will lead to blog reviews and others to the LitPick reviews. There will be Spoilers.
I would like to thank all of the Authors who contributed to the blog all year. I would also like to thank the various publishers and book groups like Henry Roi PR, Coffee & Thorn PR, BookTasters, Connect Book Services, LitPick, Reedsy Discovery, Voracious Readers Only, Michael Cheng, Mocha Memoirs Press, and Books Validator for introducing me to some wonderful works. Most of all, I would like to thank you, the Readers, for making this blog what it is. Here's to 7 years and may there be many more.
As always, Happy Reading!
Contemporary Literature
A Woman Like Maria is a sweet Romance about a woman finding love with another woman, discovering her own sexuality, and finding the courage to live her life honestly.
Sophia stoically endures a miserable childhood and an even more miserable marriage to the abusive, Ricardo. She finds a bright spot in her friendship with Ricardo’s sister, Maria.
The friendship grows into flirtation, playfulness, seduction, romance, and a physical, emotional, and spiritual love.
Despite the women’s differing personalities with the passionate Maria sometimes clashing with the rational Sophia, the two develop a love that completely changes them. In filling her desires for companionship with Maria, Sophia discovers the means to be her true authentic self.
9. Freeze Frame by Rob Santana
Rob Santana knows how to write the unexpected and his latest work, Freeze Frame is such an example. It begins as a quirky Romance between two eccentric characters then changes into a Psychological Thriller.
Wedding videographer Kim Poynter observes his neighbor, Nova Muller in secret until he gets hired to shoot Nora’s brother’s wedding video. At the wedding, his fixation on his beautiful neighbor becomes dangerous and unpredictable when he captures a violent act. He is torn between reporting the act and jeopardizing his budding romance or keeping quiet to keep the girl of his dreams.
This book handles the transition between Romance and Thriller rather well. Nova and Kim present a very likely and believable union as Kim struggles with his budding film career and Nova maintains a seemingly perfect facade to cover up her less than perfect family. The balance gives us time to get to know these characters before the violent act occurs.
The violence changes not only the trajectory of the book but the lead characters as well. They are faced with questions, doubts, fears, and insecurities that test and change them. They become completely different people from the ones we met in the first pages.
How We Were Before gives a complex, intricate, multilayered narrative in which the aftermath of a murder is seen through the eyes of various characters.
Elderly couple, Pete and Tara Blythe are murdered by Billy Lawson. The murder, arrest, trial, and sentence are seen through various people like the Blythe’s daughters, the family of the arresting officer, Billy’s mother, townspeople who hear about the murder through the news, acquaintances, co-workers, classmates, friends, and reporters covering the story.
Along with the aftermath, we peer into the Blythe’s lives from their first meeting, to their courtship, to their marriage, to their family life, to that fateful night.
The narration is fascinating as we get different details about the Blythes and Billy from the people who observed them. We also learn about the other characters and how the murders affected their perceptions of violence, justice, and community.
This is an intriguing book that reminds us that murder doesn’t just affect the murderer and its victims. Murder impacts everyone whether they are family, friends, witnesses, acquaintances, or mere observers of the crime’s fallout.
Masters of the Star Machine is a witty and fascinating look at fame, celebrity, and the lengths one goes to retain it long after their heyday is over.
Former child star turned screenwriter, Steve Wilkerson is hired to appear in a Western with his former co-stars, Judy Bentley and Doug Sanchez. As the trio reunite and prepare for this new project, old friendships, romances, and rivalries are resuscitated. Steve must also weigh his affection for Judy, who is his ex-girlfriend but is now married to the director/producer of his own upcoming writing project.
For fans of Hollywood movies and celebrity culture, this book is littered with inside references and cameos from real-life figures to give this book a sense of reality. It also gives us a piercing look at the fallout of fame particularly with child stars. Steve, Judy, and Doug took different paths after their star making careers ended.
They fell into mental illness, addiction, bad romances, and questionable careers. They have various reasons for choosing to appear in this Western and the book explores them as well as their past lives as starry eyed children and their current lives as jaded adults.
There is an ongoing theme of nostalgia and how sometimes when we glamorize the past, we tend to edit, airbrush, and remove the bad parts. Like a Hollywood film, we distort the truth and tell a story that we want to hear and believe. That is what the characters, particularly Steve, struggle with, a strong urge to hold onto a past that is only half-remembered and may not have actually existed.
Somewhere East of Me is a weird contemplative road trip that brings plenty of laughter, plenty of heart, and plenty of wisdom.
Jake receives a call from his sister that his estranged mother’s body is being exhumed and a family member must be there to witness it. Jake leaves his ex-wife but current mistress, Angel and his job as a content writer behind to travel from Colorado to South Carolina to do so.
The highlight of this book is the road trip and the various sites that Jake encounters. He encounters some strange sights in odd towns like Prairie Dog Town, a tourist spot made to look like a town for prairie dogs.
He also converses with various offbeat locals and forms a closer connection over a few minutes conversation with them than he had in a lifetime of conflict against his mother.
When Jake gets to South Carolina, he is a different, more mature, wiser character than the one who began the journey. He is able to take a more critical look at his life, work, relationships, and romances and make real changes to them.
A frequent setting this year is my home state, Missouri. Tales of Whiskey Tango from Misery Towers is an anthology that puts just as much care into the St. Louis setting as it does with its odd cast of characters.
Various characters live in the apartment complex Missouri Towers AKA “Misery Towers.” They include Nick Pipeman, a fetishist realtor, Gloria McKendrick, a Rom-com obsessed trapeze artist, Butterfly, an exotic dancer turned kidnapper, Colton Chesterfield III, a corrupt businessman who meets an unusual comeuppance, and Madison Stone, a gossip whose hobbies include sunbathing topless and spying on her neighbors. The book deals with the characters’ encounters with love, romance, politics, racism, economics, crime, and violence.
This book has a strong sense of character and setting. The cast stands out in their interactions with each other and eccentricities. They can be charming, superficial, threatening, romantic, silly, neurotic, suspicious, arrogant, bad tempered, conniving, empathic, and remorseful. They display various emotions both good and bad in their particular situations.
Above all, the city of St. Louis is seen as a character itself. Its quirks in food, slang, culture, and personality is explored in a way that shows James Aylott’s deep affection for the city and his attention to detail. Not only the city’s character but its controversies concerning issues like race, economics, and politics are explored as the cast play different roles in a city that could be friendly but could also be very violent indeed.
Domestic abuse has been a frequent and unfortunate topic that the blog has covered this year and Said The Spider to the Fly is no exception. This is a moving novel that focuses on how abuse can be felt from one generation to the next.
After her grandmother’s death, Rachel reads through her journal. Rachel learns about her Grandma Dorothy’s troubled past with an abusive father, a protective brother, and a suspenseful night when it all came to an end. While Dorothy enters a happy marriage, her daughter Lisa, Rachel’s mother, isn’t so fortunate. The abusive patterns in her parent’s marriage allow Rachel to recognize them in her own relationship with her partner, Bradley.
The book takes a strong look at the different forms of abuse whether it’s physical, emotional, psychological, or financial. A cruel word and a harsh criticism can be just as traumatic as a punch. The book is filled with harrowing chapters in which Dorothy, Lisa, Rachel, and other relatives are trapped in a cycle of violence, rage, despair, and depression. It is very realistic with how this relationship doesn’t just affect one person. It may affect the rest of the family for years and even decades to come.
Besides abuse, another prevalent theme is the healing power of nature. A frequent setting in this book is Turtle Island, a vacation spot that Dorothy and her husband, Bob visit. It is a source of many happy, but also some traumatic memories. It is also a calming nurturing force as even though horrible things happen there, the family is protected.
There are some suggestions that an almost supernatural presence hovers over the island that is aware of the problems that the mortals face and is determined to protect them. This natural presence warns and rescues those who are good to it and each other and fights against those who would use, manipulate, and beat others.
Whirl of Birds is an extremely complex anthology that deals with various narratives and themes.
The stories run some offbeat plots and characters. There are artists who turn living objects of their affection and hatred into art. Unexplained natural phenomena that give more questions than answers. Animals that seem to reflect ongoing struggles and conflicts with the humans that they interact with. People who face various versions of death or have brushes with the unexplained and the supernatural.
This is a very strange book that explores the abstract, allegorical, metaphorical, and the symbolic. The short stories aren’t always the easiest to understand but they are filled with images and symbols that are hard to put out of the mind.
They say various things about the human condition and explore basic truths underneath its strangeness. It is a book that is difficult to understand but is even harder to forget about.
Virtuous Women is a timely brilliant book that takes a sharp critical look at religious cults, the Quiverfull Movement, and the restrictive traditions that they hold, particularly the treatment of women.
Hope Wagner’s family is part of the Church of the Covenant. Her widowed father is ordered to marry newcomer, Jennifer Levine who at first is attracted to the church’s simple life and old fashioned values. Unfortunately, Jennifer begins to become more aware of the Church’s strict tenants, abusive brainwashing techniques, and forced conformity. As Jennifer begins to question their authority, Hope starts to recognize the cracks within the life that she was born and raised into.
This is a strong character study about two women who fight this religious establishment and all that it stands for. Jennifer had a romantic view of the past that has more to do with nostalgia and pop culture than reality. Once she is deprived of the ability to make decisions, speak for herself, or disagree with the men, including her husband, her ideal image comes crashing down.
Hope also takes a dismal look at this society. Once she sees it through Jennifer’s perspective, she realizes that the doubts and questions that were once in the back of her mind have now taken a human form.
She becomes aware that the Church is a cult that restricts, restrains, and isolates its members leaving them complacent and dependent. Hope is left with the choice to remain in the cult unhappy or cut herself off from her family and find a life of her own.
This is a stirring book that asks questions about faith, blind obedience, spirituality, and the cost of one's privacy and thoughts when joining or being born into a cult. Sometimes the truest, most spiritual thing that a person can do is strike out on their own, find their own path, and live their life honestly and independently.
Beautiful and Terrible Things lives up to its name. It’s about a beautiful friendship among six individuals and the terrible things that they encounter.
Charley is a bookseller with various mental disorders like OCD, Depression, and Agoraphobia. She befriends Xander, a political activist, and eventually accompanies him on an outing with his circle of friends including Terrence, a fellow activist, Jessica, a financial analyst, Sunny, s solar panel installer and Xander’s nonbinary friend with benefits, and Buwan an artist. The six characters navigate their friendship over the course of several eventful months.
S.M. Stevens makes each character stand out as individuals and within this friendship circle. They have interesting quirks and characteristics like hobbies, speech patterns, nicknames, clothing styles, and outlooks that make them recognizable. Some of these quirks are meant to illustrate their peculiarities or eccentricities. Others are more serious and point towards symptoms of mental disorders or social awareness.
For every humorous moment where we find something amusing about these characters, there are just as many sad or tragic moments where they encounter the real world conflicts around them.
The six suffer through internal conflicts like broken romances, fractured families, illness, sexuality conflicts, lost jobs, evictions, insecurities, fears, and personal struggles. They also encounter larger issues like the problems of undocumented immigrants, racial profiling, economic downturns, corporate strangleholds, and social protests. Through it all, they share a close bond that strengthens, soothes, protects, defends, and provides them with real love.
This is the kind of book that reminds us that in life, there are terrible things out there, but there can be beautiful things as well.
Historical Fiction
Just like they did with the Geometric and Mathematics worlds, Rupashana Lai Pyadhakrishan AKA Rupa and Ruby Pi and her genius colleagues take on the world of aviation. The Adventures of Ruby Pi and The Aviation Girls offers nine stories featuring brilliant girls from different time periods and countries using aviation to solve various conflicts.
The many stories run the gamut of different characters using different means of flying. Anke from 1820 uses her invention , a battle kite, to rescue her captured sister. Gia Tomasso aids the US during WWII by studying and taking photographs of Japanese planes and their pilots. Teen botanists, Mahi Jaat and Saanvi Yav solve a mystery using magnetic flight in their futuristic Moon colony. Rupa takes notes of airplanes at the London-Paris Air Race and uncovers an international spy ring. Isoke, an 18th century Beninese architect learns survival and adaptation skills observing birds during her exile.
Tom Durwood appeals to his strengths by giving us good characterization, plot, and setting to reach his Readers about the mathematical, scientific, and historical themes and concepts introduced in each story. He fits the role of an educator who makes learning fun. This is an anthology that truly takes off.
On the heels of her French Champagne Windows series, Rebecca Rosenberg takes her writing talents to the United States and gives us her most captivating, controversial, and outstanding protagonist Elizabeth “Baby Doe” McCourt Tabor star of Rosenberg's latest historical fiction novel, Gold Digger: The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor.
The book is filled with great detail about Tabor’s life including working in the silver mines alongside the male miners, her stormy two marriages particularly her second to politician Harvey Tabor, her rise as a glamorous high society matron in Gilded Age Denver, the birth of her two daughters, Lily and Silver Dollar, to the economic collapse that wiped out the Tabor Family Fortune.
Tabor is a character with a lot of grit, strength, and determination. She survived the various changes in her life by getting her hands dirty, adapting to her surroundings, and fighting against her rivals and competitors. She turns out to be stronger and more capable than her husband.
Tabor also can be pretty reckless particularly in her relationship with Horace since it began after her divorce and while he was still married to his first wife. This action causes some long term complications which are exploited by Horace’s first wife and son.
Through her struggles Tabor showed a true independent spirit that the book excellently captures.
8. 1949: Starlings of Peace (Book 1 of The Historical Fiction Trilogy) by Catherine A. Deever
1949 expertly captures an important year in World History as it was a bridge between the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War.
Four couples experience this year and deal with their personal and professional struggles while they and the rest of the world struggle to adjust to the new normal. They are Mac MacDonald and Maggie Welles from America, Sir Anthony and Lady Evelyn Taylor from Britain, Rene Laurent and Violet Charlet Boulanger from France, and Sebastian Gauss and Heidi Bauer from Germany.
The characters have many stand out moments where they deal with the scars of the previous war and the looming threat of another different kind of war looming on the horizon. There are interesting moments which display the depths of the couple's characterization. They are at a crossroads and have to return to a life that they may not be fully able to return to.
They finally reached the end of one stressful stage in their lives and now have to deal with what comes next in their lives, relationships, and countries.
I Was A Teenage Communist is a seriocomic novel that uses political ideology as a framework to capture the conflicted and complex personal lives of the book's young protagonists.
In 1981, a group of teenagers are fed up with the Capitalist materialistic Reaganomics world around them. They become fascinated with Socialism, Communism, and Marxism so they distribute a school newspaper that expresses their newfound beliefs and challenges the system.
The group consists of Sunshine, a trans female student, Davy, a charming philosopher, Geraldo, a hot headed activist, Tommy, a conspiracy theorist and musician, Barry, Tommy's brother who is the quiet leader, and Charles, Geraldo’s brother and their mentor. Through an eventful school year, the teens make their voices heard and their presences known.
While politics are important to the story, what is more important are the characters using their politics to fill a need that they lack in life. Whether it is finding a new family, going on a quest for spiritual enlightenment, longing for acceptance towards their sexuality and gender identity, holding onto ideals, or just wanting to make some noise, these kids have goals that they want fulfilled. These are lost kids looking for a way to be found.
The teens follow their chosen path while dealing with life's challenges like parental separation, complicated romances, sexual urges, and in one heartbreaking subplot being forced into conversion therapy. This is a mixture of how the personal and the political affects young people. It is a book that is better read than dead.
6. When Banana Stains Fade: A Jamaican Family Saga of Adversity and Redemption by Frances-Marie Coke
When Banana Stains Fade is firmly set in the reality of racism, poverty, classicism, gender inequality, domestic violence, and intergenerational conflicts involving five generations of a Jamaican family.
Zarah is reunited with her parents after her stormy abusive marriage comes to an end. Besides chronicling Zarah’s troubled relationship with her parents particularly her mother, Esther, it also deals with Esther's youth, and the lives of her mother and Zarah’s grandmother, Naomi, Naomi's mother Pearlie and Aunt Eudora, and Pearlie and Eudora’s mother, Agatha.
The book covers five generations of strong women facing adversity. They have been abused and abandoned by lovers, vie with religious cults, face competition because of different skin pigmentation, live with dashed dreams and disappointment, engage in extramarital affairs, suffer miscarriages, have pressures in school and work, and are pushed to surpass the previous generations and succeed where their antecedents failed.
These women live hard lives but find strength in other places through friends, family, faith, and mostly with each other. Even when they don't get along, their inner strength and love for each other is always shown as are their hopes for their daughter’s happiness and success. They have each other to see them through the dark times and find comfort, shelter, stability, guidance, and unconditional love.
Susan E. Sage’s novel, Dancing in the Ring is a fictionalized adaptation of the lives of her Great Uncle Bob and Aunt Catherine McIntosh-Sage with honesty, beauty, humor, tragedy, and thankfully without rose tinted nostalgia. She brings her ancestors to life recalling both the good and bad of their passionate, eventful, and somewhat troubled marriage.
The Sages meet in 1922 Detroit where Catherine is a law student on her way to a good career even though there are few female attorneys and Bob is also a law student but is just as interested in his professional boxing career. They marry and pursue their career goals while navigating their loving but also tempestuous relationship.
Their marriage has many positive moments like creating their own law firm, going on romantic dates, and having a wide circle of friends and family, particularly Bob’s nephew Bobby Gene whom they become surrogate parents towards. However, Sage also is aware of the darker sides of her relatives and captures it honestly, beautifully, and tragically.
Their marriage is rocked by alcoholism, unemployment, miscarriages and sometimes physical abuse. The stress of outside events and their own mercurial natures turn on them in frightening ways that result in separation.
There is a strong sense of fatalism throughout the book. The Sages are haunted by ominous predictions and dreams which end in violence and death.
The dreams are constant threads that carry throughout the book and build to a climax that suggests that their fates were decided long ago. They might have avoided this ending in various ways maybe by not getting married or even not meeting at all.
After getting to know Catherine and Bob, the Reader realizes that they wouldn't have wanted to because it would have meant avoiding the bad parts but missing the good ones. The Sages lived their lives with passion, commitment, independence, strength, and honesty. They wouldn't have had it any other way.
4. Priceless Passion by Ary Chest
Priceless Passion excels in giving us a gay man's struggles with class division, poverty, homophobia, and romance on his journey towards self-reflection and discovery of his own identity.
In the 1920’s Eustice Mercidale is part of a wealthy Baltimore family. He lives a life of outward appearance and inward despair. He is bullied by his abusive corrupt father and is forced to suppress his longing for other men. His secret life becomes open when he meets Cyrus, a server. Their flirtation grows into a sexual romance and a real substantial relationship. This relationship and revelation that Cyrus is a Communist activist propels Eustice to abandon his old rich life and live a less financially secure life with Cyrus.
The book expertly captures the division between Eustice's old and new life. In Baltimore, his family lives a life that is pretty but cold, look but don't touch. He is dominated by his father and longs to rebel like his flapper sister but he feels the burden of being the #1 son and family heir. He passively accepts what happens around him but longs for escape.
Cyrus opens up a real life for him where he has to take action, work hard, get by with very little, and be derided or ignored by people who would have once been his peers. Now having seen the class division from both sides, Eustice understands why people like Cyrus rebel against people like his father.
Eustice also becomes an out and proud LGBT+ activist as out as he could be in that time period. The 1920's and 30's Queer scene opens a new world for him where he feels accepted. It's a world that he and Cyrus will fight and scheme to protect. Living outside of society is a price that Eustice must pay and he is willing to do so if it means being with the man that he loves. Eustice and Cyrus display real courage by loving each other while living in a hateful atmosphere that surrounds them. They defy in their own way together.
The Peacock's Heritage is a comprehensive book that explores important events in the long life of its protagonist.
Brigid Power McGrath Hayes Lansdowne grew up during the Irish Potato Famine. The book sees her through poverty, English Rule and Irish rebellion, immigration to England, the United States, and the Caribbean, careers as accountant, writer, and philanthropist, three marriages, four children, loss, a wide circle of friends and family, and a change in status from poverty to wealth.
Brigid is a multifaceted richly written protagonist as the Reader experiences her entire life. By far the most traumatic events occur during the Potato Famine when family members become seriously ill, face imminent starvation, and her father abandons them and practically sells her into marriage. It takes a strong person to survive such an ordeal and thankfully Brigid is such a person.
Brigid's three marriages reflect her changes in life. Her first marriage to Niall McGrath, a banker and activist, is youthful and passionate. They enter their careers and recklessly get involved in the Free Ireland Movement by taking part in protests and undergoing dangerous missions. This marriage is based on youth.
Her second marriage to Finnbar Hayes, a college professor and leader of the Fenian Brotherhood is one in which her activism hasn't changed but is based on rational decisions and understanding that rebellion affects a wider group of people. She also gains wealth and respectability by emigrating to the US and becoming an influential leader of her community. This marriage is based on adulthood.
Brigid's third marriage to John Lansdowne, a sea captain, is based on companionship and a relief from loneliness. Since she is no longer politically active, she becomes interested in helping her children find their own life paths. She has the financial security and the serenity that comes with age to care for herself and those around her. This marriage is based on old age.
Reading a book like The Peacock's Heritage can be a dizzying experience to read about a long eventful life that has many changes. When the book is closed, the Reader feels like they lived a whole life with Brigid. They are exhausted but are glad that they got to know such a fascinating dynamic character during interesting times.
This final book in The Constellation Trilogy ends this pirate adventure series on an appropriately high note.
Pirates Rene Delacroix, Franz Seymour and Aiden Carlyle are arrested and forcibly returned to their old stomping grounds of Kingston, Jamaica and have to encounter Rene’s abusive grandfather, estranged parents, and his one time close friend Nicholas Jerome, his father's first mate.
Sailing By Gemini's Star develops the characters in ways that are surprising and ultimately rewarding. Rene, Franz, and Auden have changed from naive kids, to adventurous adults with strong moral compasses, to wily veteran sea dogs with proud reputations behind them. As their former captain Ajani Danso chooses his next path, they ascend on their own.
While the pirate's story is strong and rich in transformation, it is actually their adversaries who go through the strongest evolutions in character. It gets to the point where when Crabb writes about their battles, the Reader is not sure who to root for. Astra, Rene's mother, finally leaves her oppressive life behind and becomes more active. Michel, his father, is left with the choice between family and duty when he is left alone.
The best development occurs from Nicholas Jerome. He was a once uncertain young man torn between his career in the Royal Navy and his conscience magnified by his love for the Delacroix Family. He then changed into a ruthless and efficient pirate hunter and company man to an exile who is mentally tortured and remorseful of his previous actions and is unsure if he deserves forgiveness. His transformation is a slow moving process that is well earned when it happens.
Sailing By Gemini's Star is a fine ending to a wonderful series, one of the best in the entire blog.
Red Gifts in The Garden of Stones weaves the realistic and the fantastic in this novel about four generations of mothers and daughters.
The Coombe Family are ready to celebrate the 100th birthday of their matriarch Lizzie in 1960’s Swansea, Wales while the rest of the town gathers suspicions about them egged on by Rev. Morgan. Lizzie spends her time talking to the ghosts of those who have gone on before her. Her daughter, Myfanwy feels strongly and is barely biting back an explosive temper. Myfanwy’s daughter, Sarah Maud, lives in an alcoholic stupor and haunts various pubs. Sarah Maud’s daughter Jenner goes on endless treks through the woods and is fascinated by ancient powers that her ancestors had.
This family loves and irritates each other. They often argue about Lizzie's diminishing mind, Myfanwy's temper, Sarah Maud's alcoholism, and Jenner's disappearances. Their quirks allow them to function in the world but also act as barriers to avoid emotional closeness. They are also deeply loyal. They take care of each other when they are sick and will go on the defensive if one is attacked. They fit the “I love you even if I don't always like you “ mindset. Anyone within a family like that will definitely identify with this attitude, especially when they are mothers and daughters.
While realism is on the forefront, a mystical element carries throughout the book. There is a strong closeness to nature which calls to mind the Pagan connection with the environment. The references to mist and grayness have a haunting melancholy demeanor.
The four Coombe women reflect the different stages of the Triple Goddess in Celtic mythology. Jenner is the youthful innocent Maiden, Sarah Maud and Myfanwy reflect the Mother with Sarah Maud as the earthy sensual Nymph aspect and Myfanwy as the fierce protective Warrior aspect. Lizzie is the wise experienced nostalgic Crone.
The supernatural elements are understated so Readers could think they could be magical or mundane. Animals and people appear that might be real or might be mythological figures. Lizzie’s ghosts could be literal ghosts or symptoms of an aging mind. Though we are given some theories, mostly we are left to make our own conclusions.
Red Gifts in The Garden of Stones is very meditative and lyrical but also relatable and contemporary. It reflects a poetic dream-like world of spirits, magic, and ancient traditions but also faces a reality of addiction, abandonment, grief, and intergenerational conflicts. This book doesn't fit nearly into one genre or category so much that it crosses and opens a veil between reality and fantasy, natural and supernatural, ordinary and fantastic.
